Can it really be 20 years since Blackberry Smoke rolled up to the back porch looking like they’d just fallen off the back of a pick-up truck and were willing to work for food? As the adage goes, they’ve come a long way since then, although geographically they’re still based pretty close to the homes they grew up in.
Which might go some way to explaining how and why they’ve retained their rootsy charm. That sounds like the most backhanded of compliments, but Blackberry Smoke take a term like ‘rootsy’, and reimagine it – country, folk, hard rock, a hint of gospel. It’s no surprise to find that they’re still one of the most unlikely looking arena acts tearing it up on whichever continent they happen to find themselves on.
